Review: Lise Davidsen's Recital at the Met will be a Hard Act for a DEAD MAN to Follow

The Metropolitan Opera somehow managed to upstage itself on Thursday, when it offered audiences a spectacular recital by Norwegian soprano Lisa Davidsen, with her excellent musical partner James Baillieu on piano, 12 days before the company’s official opening night (the Jake Heggie-Terrence McNally DEAD MAN WALKING on the 26th). It’ll be a hard act to follow.

While this was Davidsen’s in-house recital debut, this isn’t the first one she’s done under the Met’s auspices. That was back during the bad old days of Covid in August 2020, when the opera house was in lockdown and the company rounded up a bevy of “name brand” singers—from Joyce DiDonato and Renee Fleming to Roberto Alagna and Jonas Kaufmann—for a series called “Met Stars Live in Concert,” almost all performing “live” in striking locations across Europe and the United States.

Davidsen almost seemed a ringer among a roster of better known (but not better singing) performers, though she’d already made her Met highly anticipated debut in Tchaikovsky’s QUEEN OF SPADES. She didn’t disappoint in either effort. The two recitals shared a few selections but she’s learned a few things in the ensuing years.

For example, there was Wagner’s “Dich, teure Halle” from TANNHAUSER. (On Thuesday, she talked of her affection for the Met, “this hall” (teure Halle), in her charming banter before she sang.)  The aria had already become something of a calling card for Davidsen, having won Norway’s “Queen Sonja International Music Competition” and the Operalia Competition with it. She chose it to kick off the televised concert from the Oscarshall palace—summer home of Norway’s regents—and the “wow-factor” clearly came into play, with her joyous burst of energy. But where do you go from there?

This time around, she held off on singing the aria until the closing of the first part of the concert, after sets of exquisitely rendered songs by her countryman, “my home composer”), Edvard Grieg, along with the Finnish Jean Sibelius and a pair of Verdi arias, from BALLO and OTELLO.

From the moment she began to sing the lieder, her charming stage presence and ease of vocal production in the Grieg (most in Norwegian, two in German) won the audience’s high regard and, yes, adoration. (Her Sibelius, darker in tone, was impeccable as well.) She could scale down her voice to a whisper when she wanted—then open the valves full throttle and blow us away. Hearing her in her native language brought that extra something to her musicality, but it was interesting to hear a difference in the cast of her voice for the songs in German, with less light coming through.

The two Verdi arias let her show off other aspects of her sound, particularly “Morro, ma prima in grazia” from BALLO, which spotlighted her voice’s rich lower register. While I prefer when she goes into the stratosphere—her upper range is spectacular—her lower notes are treasurable as well. Yet it’s hard to believe that she started out her singing life as a mezzo (until a new teacher set her on the right road) because her high notes are so strong and exciting.

The second part of the program began with Lisa’s intensely dramatic aria, “Uzh polnoch blizitsya,” from Act III of Tchaikovsky’s QUEEN OF SPADES (PIQUE DAME). It brought back wonderfully memories of her Met debut and the discovery of Davidsen’s marvelous instrument. Once again, she was in wonderful voice and shared her deep feelings about the text with us—turning the aria into a mini-opera of its own.

It came from deep inside her and made us think about what an artist she is and how she is keyed in to what the composer and librettist/lyricist/poet are thinking in each of the works. While she claimed she was so nervous at her debut—and still is—you could hardly think any such thing is going.

She then turned again to two sets of songs—from very different composers, Franz Schubert and Richard Strauss. Davidsen admitted having kept her distance from Schubert at first, until she warmed to his music’s place in her life, understanding that the songs have different meanings to each singer who takes them on, for each fach, male or female. Pianist Baillieu played a particularly significant role here, with the songs going from the romantically melodic, to the exuberant, from the trance-like to an almost Ave Maria-like feeling.

Turning to Strauss, she admitted that some of his works are included in her “top 10.” Mine, too, in this case, the soaring musical line of “Zueignung,” the earnest ”Cacilie” (which I have become increasingly fond of) and, of course, the hushed, poignant “Morgen.” I also was taken with her sad and wise performance of “Befreit,” floating notes that grew and grew to a breathtaking size.

After so much dramatic and sometimes somber music on the program, Davidsen chose two lighter pieces to end the program, where she could, metaphorically at least, kick up her heels: Emmerich Kalman’s “Heia, heia, in den Bergen ist mein Heimatland” from DIE CSARDASFURSTIN and Lerner & Loewe’s “I Could Have Danced All Night” from MY FAIR LADY. Both were delights, though I’m not sure I’m ready for her as Eliza Doolittle.

True to herself, her encores ended on quiet, thoughtful notes: First Tosca’s “Vissi d’arte” (which could be on her horizon at some point), in a gorgeous, carefully paced performance that came pouring out of her, and the pensive, elegaic “Varen” by Grieg.

It was a miraculous evening and Davidsen came across as a charming, yet indubitably artful performer. I can’t wait for her to return in the new production of Verdi’s LA FORZA DEL DESTINO in February.

Photo: Lise Davidsen and James Baillieu. By Karen Almond/The Met

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